Page 30 of Untempered
Regardless, he was distracted, and I’d take the reprieves I could get. “Needs must, Your Grace.”
“It would seem so.” He turned over the assassin with one booted foot. We all gazed down at her form. I didn’t mention he’d rolled her onto her broken arm. She was probably Audrey’s age but as finely built as a bird.
He reached into the collar of their shirt and pulled out heavy silver loops, letting them fall onto their thin chest. The slow rise and fall of her breathing made the metal glitter in the silence of the room. I stood back, watching the Butcher’s face.
He knew what it meant. And, from the way he was looking at that necklace, he knew this Worg’s importance.
Audrey had no idea. She stood, hands clasped before her, eyes on the rug somewhere to the side of the unconscious attacker. Ignorance, for her, was safest right now.
Heavy, unhurried steps warned us of Mikus’ approach long before he arrived with the jangle of metal and the creak of leather, stinking of beer and sweat. He’d obviously thrown his black tabard over top of whatever he’d worn to drown his sorrows. I wouldn’t have bet on him having been in his cups too long. He was too stable for that. But I was interested to see half his face was swollen beyond recognition. Mayhap the ’Ban rider had done a better job than I’d thought, or mayhap Mikus had gone looking for a way to vent.
“Forget something, Mikus?” the Butcher asked, his words almost idle as he straightened.
Every single one of us in the room, except the unconscious rebel, felt the implicit threat in that calm.
Mikus bowed deeply. “Your Grace, after the tourney?—”
“After you disgraced me,” the Butcher corrected, coldly.
They were doing this right here, and I wasn’t going to show my thoughts. We’d had two close calls today. We just needed to get through this one.
“Sullivan should’ve been on the door, Your Grace,” Mikus said firmly. “The Watch was set.”
“Funny,” my father said without any trace of humor. “That isn’t what I’ve heard.”
Mikus’ jaw worked. He dropped his eyes to the assassin, but I could feel the fury in him.
“Von Rhea is dead,” my father said, straightening. “My daughter could be. Who should pay the price for that?”
“The men not at their post,” Mikus replied. “Your Grace.”
“If I didn’t set the Watch on La’Angi and the duchy was overrun, I think I’d be at fault.”
The urge to move toward Audrey was physically painful to resist. The Butcher stepped up close to Mikus. I recognized the pose and the power in the older man’s limbs, and the impotent rage in Mikus. Dread beat somewhere in the vicinity of my belly.
If this became lethal, we were far too close.
“Next time you fail me will be the last. Are we clear, soldier?”
Mikus’ head bobbed once, hard, and relief trickled through me.
“Good. Sullivan is new First Blackguard.” Color flared in Mikus’ cheeks and that relief turned to ice at his expression. “Bring the woman. I do like to have political prisoners before we even declare war.” Then he walked through Mikus, forcing the big man to fall back to make space as the Butcher left.
I didn’t move as Mikus strode over. He, too, paused for a moment at the sight of all that silver. And then he was picking up the assassin like they weighed no more than a ham. His eyes settled on Audrey as he did, and a chill washed through my bones at the sheer menace in that look.
All the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room. There had been real threat in that brute. He spun, and the woman’s boots hit the door on the way out. A flake of mud fluttered to the stone floor.
Alone again, I circled the area, sticking to the shadows and moving quickly toward the door. “Von Rhea,” Audrey said, horrified. The King’s representative. A poor target. Better that they’d sent all the assassins at the Butcher. I closed the door firmly. “War. He said war, Isolde.” There wasn’t shock. She was just stating facts. “It’d be against the Southern rebels. Surely, this is the start of a rebellion.” Now she sounded puzzled, and I turned to her, watching as she turned it over in her head. What she said made sense. “If there is war, he’ll go South. He broke Wolfswail once. He can do it again.”
Any further commentary she held until after the Healer arrived, and I wondered if I ought to count the Butcher’s attendance as the third time Audrey had escaped death this day. Luca had told us there would be change.
Which meant Luca was part of this rebellion.
Which meant Audrey was betrothed to a problem.
She should’ve known that part, although the political implications were, I had to admit, not as predictable. Who’d have thought the dreamer would actuallydosomething?
Of course he’d done it wrong, but mayhap I ought to have credited him for doing it at all.
